Putsonderwater

(Tr as Well-without-Water or The Virgin and the Vultures) by Bartho Smit. Based on a Bernanos novella ‘’Sous le soleil de Satan’’ and set in a small South African village, the characters are representatives of religious, secular and political power, and the playwright’s exploration of their relationship with the young virgin, constitutes a virulent attack on social hypocrisy. Written 1960?*, published by Tafelberg Uitgewers in 1962. In 1961 it was submitted as possible opening piece for the newly built Johannesburg Civic Theatre, but was rejected. Denied performance in South Africa for many years, it was first performed to acclaim by ‘’Volksteater Vertikaal’’ in Ghent in 1968 and toured Belgium for a year. Directed at Rhodes University in 1969 by Abraham de Vries, then had a brief and little publicised workshop production for an invited audience by the PACOFS experimental theatre group in the Ou Presidensie Teater (“Old Presidency Theatre”), directed by Henk Hugo. In 1970 a scheduled production by CAPAB was banned by the Administrator of the Cape Province (in his capacity as chairman of the board) a few days before the opening. Eleven years later, in 1981, the first fully professional production was done by PACT in the State /Breytenbach? * Theatre, Pretoria directed by Francois Swart/??* [check facts here],. Published by Afr. Pers-Boekhandel. English translation by A. Dawes: Well-without-Water or The Virgin and the Vultures.

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